[Note: This is a reprint of a review I wrote 20 years ago, with only minor edits. It’s running here due to the 20th anniversary re-release of “Forrest Gump” this week at IMAX theaters across the country.]

“Forrest Gump,” the name of the Winston Groom novel and the title character in this groundbreaking movie, is a major cinematic accomplishment that stands over and above anything so far in 1994 for a number of reasons. It’s hard hitting and subtle, very funny and terribly sad, serious and ridiculous, and bigger than most films dream of being.

Tom Hanks, in yet another wonderfully acted role, is Forrest, a simple, rather slow fellow who long ago got used to rude, impatient people calling him stupid. Actually, he is low in the IQ area, but he’s a good man with nothing but good intentions and a sense of honor about him. As a once-crippled boy, he listened to his mama’s (Sally Field) simple wisdoms and never forgot them. He also paid attention to the advice of his little friend Jenny, someone who, as a youngster, had a much heavier burden on her than walking funny.

As Forrest grows older, the world around him changes radically, but he doesn’t. Much like the character Chance in Jerzy Kosinski’s “Being There,” he remains the simple innocent lost in a complex environment. In a completely successful attempt at explaining what was going on in America throughout the film’s span of the mid-1950s to the early-1980s, director Robert Zemeckis (“Who Framed Roger Rabbit”) fills the background with flickering TVs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and various other media, then takes it one giant step further, using cinema technology that was hinted at in Woody Allen’s “Zelig,” but is mastered here.

He physically puts Forrest into a variety of situations with historical figures and celebrities. He meets with and shows his battle scars to Lyndon Baines Johnson. He’s a guest on Dick Cavett’s TV show where he sits and chats with John Lennon. There are plenty more. But Zemeckis wisely uses these amazing special effects only as a tool to further the story, not as a show-stopping device. It’s best not to stop and wonder how a certain composite shot was done or how someone who is walking around normally in one scene, is suddenly and believably without legs in another.

The director’s real intention isn’t to boggle the mind, it’s to tell a story, a reality-based fantasy about life and death and so many of the good and bad things that come in between. The film unfolds from the vantage point of a bus stop in Savannah, Georgia, where Forrest has come to pay a visit. Although his life is highlighted by natural abilities such as running and playing a hell of a Ping-Pong game, Forrest’s favorite activity is talking. And talk he does, to anyone at the bus stop bench who will listen, about his boyhood, college, joining the army, serving in Vietnam, following or being followed by his one true love (terrifically portrayed by Robin Wright in a difficult part), business and personal relationships, and much more. Forrest is an Everyman who has seen and done more than any one person could possibly do. But none of it fazes him. He just accepts it all. He has, in his own simple term, “worn a lot of shoes.”

Page 2 of 2 - Although the film is often outrageously funny and sometimes dips into the dark side of humor, it’s also never afraid to be brutally honest about its subject matter. The extended sequence in Vietnam features some shattering moments, and the aftereffects of America’s doomed involvement there are shown in a brilliantly realized recreation of the 1969 protest rally at the Washington, D.C. reflecting pool.

By the end of the close to 2 1/2-hour film, we’ve learned everything there is to know about shrimp, been told all about destiny, heard a Greek chorus of snippets from the Great American Rock Songbook, and seen emotions run rampant but never get out of control. We’ve also seen why Hanks is an established movie star and why Gary Sinise, as Lieutenant Dan, is going to become one. Both will be Oscar-nominated, along with the script, director, and film. [2014 note: All were nominated, and all won the gold except Sinise, who lost to Martin Landau for “Ed Wood.”] “Forrest Gump” flies right by. No one will be bothered by its length. Most people will leave the theater wearing a soft, warm glow, wishing it could have gone on just a little longer.